Yes, it does a wash wipe
I don’t seem to have much bother with my wipers either. They seem no better or worse than other cars I’ve owned.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Was going to order, now in 2 minds
- Thread starter Tigermad
- Start date
- Status
I don’t seem to have much bother with my wipers either. They seem no better or worse than other cars I’ve owned.
The China deliveries started yesterday, so I'd say there was a very good chance that if you are ordering a LR or SR+ you will get a China made one (unless you plump for an older inventory model)
To answer the question above @Tigermad, yes, you can press the button on the stalk to wipe once (press and hold to use screen wash). I applied the G-Techniq glass product to my screen, I rarely have to intervene now with the wipers. Maybe my BMW ones were crap so my expectations are low based on some of the other comments, but they seem to work fine for me.
Don't forget with a lease you can still get the company to use a referral code on your behalf to get you some free supercharger miles, not after you using mine or anything, people have them in their profiles generally if you want to find one.
I've had my M3P now since August 2019, even with all the choice at the moment, I'm still thinking that the next car will also be a Tesla, but more likely a LR with a tow bar. Still a couple of years to go though.
Mperkins28
Member
HenryT
Active Member
I don't believe it does. Just the LR and P get heated steering wheels from comments so far.
I'd like to underline this. The problem will soon be a thing of the past.
As to the headlights, they sometimes got misadjusted when an update was installed. But:
- It hasn't happened to me in a long time, and
- they can be readjusted automatically, more precisely reset to their original setting, with just a few taps.
I had the exact same concerns as you before and during my order for a Model 3. I came very close to cancelling a few times, predominantly due to the reported phantom braking issue. Originally I had a Polestar 2 on order, one of the very first to come into the country - exciting times! However, I had a test drive and the seats caused me severe lower-back pain which is a common issue I have with a lot of seats
When I was looking through the forums I really wanted to know everything, the good and the bad and as close to the truth as possible. So I'll try and cover everything I've experienced as best I can.
The phantom braking is definitely a thing. The problem is everyone's threshold for 'aggressive braking' is different. For me, I find phantom braking can vary from mild to somewhat hard but not 'slam on' hard. If it was full hard braking the hazards would engage, and they never have, at least for me. I was in a car with a friend when a Tesla in front braked, looked like phantom braking to me. I told my friend and he thought it was fairly hard braking, and I thought it was pretty light, so take that for what you will. Most of the time phantom braking is predictable after a while, and it's usually lorries that trigger it. The other thing that triggers it are cars deviating in their lane, this causes the Tesla to slow down and stay behind until they are 'definitely' in their lane. For me, phantom braking is an annoyance but not a critical issue. I've had the car on AP go through a 50mph average speed zone for over an hour continuously, in the dark, passing lorries, and there were no isues.
Does the phantom braking change your mental model to use the accelerator in an emergency? Yes, yes it does. This is the bigger issue, the boy who called wolf issue. So when a deer jumped out on the motorway, not only did the car not fail to slow / stop (it was on AP) my first reaction was to move my foot to the accelerator and not the brakes. I did hit the brakes, but I also had a bit of my foot on the accelerator too. I had a notification as such, fortunately the car ignores the accelerator impact. I ended up hitting the deer, breaking the headlight, cracking the front bumper and bending the front wing. I think if I was in my Porshe Boxster 981, it would have been a very close miss due to harder braking from the car being lighter and faster reaction time.
The other issue that's sometimes brought up is that AP can randomly steer the wrong way. I have had this, but it's never been a real issue. You have your hand on the wheel at all times, and when the wheel starts turning the wrong way you can feel it straight away and take over. It's a bit violent because unlike all other cars, Tesla keeps a very firm grip of the wheel so taking over involves a lot more torque. But I can't say I've ever come even close to an issue with the car steering badly because any time it's gone wrong I've just held onto the wheel.
Front collision warning is an annoying one. Tesla is way more sensitive than most cars. I say most, I've seen some videos of VAG cars on empty country roads emergency braking with full ABS engagement and tyre squeel to a complete stop. I've set my front collision to 'warn' with no action. That means it alerts me and even sometimes says 'taking corrective steering for your safety' but the steering wheel is not touched by the system. I think at slow speeds it would still engage the anchors if it thought a front collision was actually imminent like other cars with emergency stop. Well, unless it's a deer, it seems to have a taste for them. Either way, the warning sounds a bit scary and you see a red object in the visualisation but that's about the sum of it. The programmers are clearly going for 'safety' as the default decision so everything is conservative with Tesla. I think they take it too far and the false warnings me you don't really pay attention to them. They also don't pick up deer, at all. You can change the alerts to 'late' to reduce the frequency, but I like it at 'medium' so when I'm on AP if I end up looking out the side windows I have a bit more warning.
Auto wipers, now they're fun. I find in the day time they're OK most of the time. I've had cars with better auto wipers, and I've had cars with worse. You can light press the left wiper button for a single wipe without using the screen wash. This also brings up the UI on the screen so you can manually override if required. The screen can either be easy to touch, or hard to touch depending on the road conditions. Any time AP works it's obviously very easy. At night, the auto wipers are not very good at all, and usually I'll end up at a manual setting. This is in stark contrast to other auto wiper systems, where even the worst ones work at night 'well enough'.
Auto highbeam, don't bother with that. It blows my mind that a system that can track individual cars can't use that data to turn the high beam on / off as required. But there we go. But in terms of turning on / off the lights entirely it's one of the best systems I've used. So you can leave auto lights on, but control the high beam yourself.
For the final negative, let's talk updates. All cars are software controlled now, including ICE. However, with an EV the software can affect the car significantly more than it can with an ICE. With ICE the cam shaft can be phased and maybe there's another set of CAMs but that's it for controlling the valves. The air flow to the engine can be controlled by the throttle body, but there's still physics delaying things and so on, so you can do only so much. And so on. With an EV, the software has direct control over the motor and battery, and the changes are incredibly rapid. This is to say, when you have an EV software can have a profound impact on the car and experience. Most updates are largely pretty good, but some can be bad and I had a real scare with this recently. At the bodyshop they updated the car to the latest version which was the one with the new visualisation that no one particularly likes. On my drive home and subsequently to the detailer for PPF replacement on the painted panels, the car felt completely different. Power consumption was up by 1/3, AP drove to the left of the lane making it useless in lanes 2/3 lest I seriously scare every lorry driver I passed. It wasn't responsive, performance was down, and even though it's impossible, the car even seemed to roll more. While the PPF was applied, I was genuinely considering changing the car. However, when I picked up the car a week later it was just as it was before. So looks like a mix of software update / all the stuff the bodyshop did just caused it to need to reset itself maybe. But that's when I realised just how big an impact updates can have, and Tesla could decide to do whatever and the car will be forever different in a material way.
But that's enough about the negatives, let's talk the positives. The driving experience is unique, and for me, about as close to perfect as it gets. I basically want a grand tourer. Something that's comfortable for long distance international trips, but simultaneously a sports car for the fun bits. For that the Model 3 fits the bill perfectly. Previously going to the highlands (I'm south west) I'd be very tired at Inverness. With the Tesla on Auto Pilot, I was perfectly awake. Yes you get the odd phantom brake, but for the rest of the time it's super relaxing and you can enjoy the scenery.
Then when you get to the fun roads you can let lose. It's a heavy car, and the tyres are relatively skinny so you can't expect a Porsche experience. However, that just brings the limits down to a more accessible level. It's not GT86 accessible, but it's certainly fun. I have just as much, or more fun in the Tesla than I do the Boxster 981. To the point I'll be selling my Boxster shortly, rather than keeping it as the 'fun' car. The Tesla has a lot of character, which I didn't expect from an EV. Jeremy Clarkson likes to talk about how the best cars are flawed, and that's what makes them human. I think the Tesla perfectly emobodies this, it has all sorts of annoying quirks and problems, but that just makes you love it more. Unless those quirks and problems are actual problems for you, then you'll end up resenting it like nothing else.
There's a reason Tesla owners have such high satisfaction ratings, despite also rating the car to be poorly built with terrible customer service. The cars are amazing, even with all the flaws. This should be a major concern for Tesla though. Eventually there will be competition, BMW will offer EV versions of their M cars, Porsche will have EV 911s and Caymans/Boxsters, and so on. Once that competition is in place, the poor customer service will mean Tesla won't be selling that many cars at all.
So would I recommend a Tesla? Yes, absolutely I would. I love my Model 3 and look forward to every drive in it. But I'm not blind to the flaws either and I think in 3-5yrs time the landscape will be different. The real question is, if my car got written off now what would I buy? It would be another Model 3 Performance.
When I was looking through the forums I really wanted to know everything, the good and the bad and as close to the truth as possible. So I'll try and cover everything I've experienced as best I can.
The phantom braking is definitely a thing. The problem is everyone's threshold for 'aggressive braking' is different. For me, I find phantom braking can vary from mild to somewhat hard but not 'slam on' hard. If it was full hard braking the hazards would engage, and they never have, at least for me. I was in a car with a friend when a Tesla in front braked, looked like phantom braking to me. I told my friend and he thought it was fairly hard braking, and I thought it was pretty light, so take that for what you will. Most of the time phantom braking is predictable after a while, and it's usually lorries that trigger it. The other thing that triggers it are cars deviating in their lane, this causes the Tesla to slow down and stay behind until they are 'definitely' in their lane. For me, phantom braking is an annoyance but not a critical issue. I've had the car on AP go through a 50mph average speed zone for over an hour continuously, in the dark, passing lorries, and there were no isues.
Does the phantom braking change your mental model to use the accelerator in an emergency? Yes, yes it does. This is the bigger issue, the boy who called wolf issue. So when a deer jumped out on the motorway, not only did the car not fail to slow / stop (it was on AP) my first reaction was to move my foot to the accelerator and not the brakes. I did hit the brakes, but I also had a bit of my foot on the accelerator too. I had a notification as such, fortunately the car ignores the accelerator impact. I ended up hitting the deer, breaking the headlight, cracking the front bumper and bending the front wing. I think if I was in my Porshe Boxster 981, it would have been a very close miss due to harder braking from the car being lighter and faster reaction time.
The other issue that's sometimes brought up is that AP can randomly steer the wrong way. I have had this, but it's never been a real issue. You have your hand on the wheel at all times, and when the wheel starts turning the wrong way you can feel it straight away and take over. It's a bit violent because unlike all other cars, Tesla keeps a very firm grip of the wheel so taking over involves a lot more torque. But I can't say I've ever come even close to an issue with the car steering badly because any time it's gone wrong I've just held onto the wheel.
Front collision warning is an annoying one. Tesla is way more sensitive than most cars. I say most, I've seen some videos of VAG cars on empty country roads emergency braking with full ABS engagement and tyre squeel to a complete stop. I've set my front collision to 'warn' with no action. That means it alerts me and even sometimes says 'taking corrective steering for your safety' but the steering wheel is not touched by the system. I think at slow speeds it would still engage the anchors if it thought a front collision was actually imminent like other cars with emergency stop. Well, unless it's a deer, it seems to have a taste for them. Either way, the warning sounds a bit scary and you see a red object in the visualisation but that's about the sum of it. The programmers are clearly going for 'safety' as the default decision so everything is conservative with Tesla. I think they take it too far and the false warnings me you don't really pay attention to them. They also don't pick up deer, at all. You can change the alerts to 'late' to reduce the frequency, but I like it at 'medium' so when I'm on AP if I end up looking out the side windows I have a bit more warning.
Auto wipers, now they're fun. I find in the day time they're OK most of the time. I've had cars with better auto wipers, and I've had cars with worse. You can light press the left wiper button for a single wipe without using the screen wash. This also brings up the UI on the screen so you can manually override if required. The screen can either be easy to touch, or hard to touch depending on the road conditions. Any time AP works it's obviously very easy. At night, the auto wipers are not very good at all, and usually I'll end up at a manual setting. This is in stark contrast to other auto wiper systems, where even the worst ones work at night 'well enough'.
Auto highbeam, don't bother with that. It blows my mind that a system that can track individual cars can't use that data to turn the high beam on / off as required. But there we go. But in terms of turning on / off the lights entirely it's one of the best systems I've used. So you can leave auto lights on, but control the high beam yourself.
For the final negative, let's talk updates. All cars are software controlled now, including ICE. However, with an EV the software can affect the car significantly more than it can with an ICE. With ICE the cam shaft can be phased and maybe there's another set of CAMs but that's it for controlling the valves. The air flow to the engine can be controlled by the throttle body, but there's still physics delaying things and so on, so you can do only so much. And so on. With an EV, the software has direct control over the motor and battery, and the changes are incredibly rapid. This is to say, when you have an EV software can have a profound impact on the car and experience. Most updates are largely pretty good, but some can be bad and I had a real scare with this recently. At the bodyshop they updated the car to the latest version which was the one with the new visualisation that no one particularly likes. On my drive home and subsequently to the detailer for PPF replacement on the painted panels, the car felt completely different. Power consumption was up by 1/3, AP drove to the left of the lane making it useless in lanes 2/3 lest I seriously scare every lorry driver I passed. It wasn't responsive, performance was down, and even though it's impossible, the car even seemed to roll more. While the PPF was applied, I was genuinely considering changing the car. However, when I picked up the car a week later it was just as it was before. So looks like a mix of software update / all the stuff the bodyshop did just caused it to need to reset itself maybe. But that's when I realised just how big an impact updates can have, and Tesla could decide to do whatever and the car will be forever different in a material way.
But that's enough about the negatives, let's talk the positives. The driving experience is unique, and for me, about as close to perfect as it gets. I basically want a grand tourer. Something that's comfortable for long distance international trips, but simultaneously a sports car for the fun bits. For that the Model 3 fits the bill perfectly. Previously going to the highlands (I'm south west) I'd be very tired at Inverness. With the Tesla on Auto Pilot, I was perfectly awake. Yes you get the odd phantom brake, but for the rest of the time it's super relaxing and you can enjoy the scenery.
Then when you get to the fun roads you can let lose. It's a heavy car, and the tyres are relatively skinny so you can't expect a Porsche experience. However, that just brings the limits down to a more accessible level. It's not GT86 accessible, but it's certainly fun. I have just as much, or more fun in the Tesla than I do the Boxster 981. To the point I'll be selling my Boxster shortly, rather than keeping it as the 'fun' car. The Tesla has a lot of character, which I didn't expect from an EV. Jeremy Clarkson likes to talk about how the best cars are flawed, and that's what makes them human. I think the Tesla perfectly emobodies this, it has all sorts of annoying quirks and problems, but that just makes you love it more. Unless those quirks and problems are actual problems for you, then you'll end up resenting it like nothing else.
There's a reason Tesla owners have such high satisfaction ratings, despite also rating the car to be poorly built with terrible customer service. The cars are amazing, even with all the flaws. This should be a major concern for Tesla though. Eventually there will be competition, BMW will offer EV versions of their M cars, Porsche will have EV 911s and Caymans/Boxsters, and so on. Once that competition is in place, the poor customer service will mean Tesla won't be selling that many cars at all.
So would I recommend a Tesla? Yes, absolutely I would. I love my Model 3 and look forward to every drive in it. But I'm not blind to the flaws either and I think in 3-5yrs time the landscape will be different. The real question is, if my car got written off now what would I buy? It would be another Model 3 Performance.
As others have said people largely take to Forums to complain so you get a biased view, the silent majority who are happy with their cars are absent. Having owned my SR+ for 18 Months now I love it, the smoothness and acceleration never get boring and it attracts positive attention like no other car I've ever owned, even now finding people taking pictures of it etc. Pre Pandemic it absolutely astonished folks in the Office and some were so jealous they wouldn't even go for a run in it. Issues like Phantom Braking are real but it has only happened a couple of times to me and in my view it is getting better / gentler but I know others will disagree. The Supercharger Network is an absolute game changer for longer drives (when you are allowed to do that) having a coffee while the car charges is an absolute pleasure and something you have to experience to believe. If I wrote it off tomorrow there's only one place I would go, the Tesla Website.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
@boogle
That's a brilliant summary, well worth a read by anyone contemplating buying a Tesla Model 3.
It is very definitely a question of whether the irritating things outweigh the great things. My first winter with the Model 3 (I bought my car in November 2019) was very disappointing, but the car was new and I had high hopes that the irritating flaws would be sorted out with updates.
Last summer was definitely odd, because of the plague, but the car was generally great fun, and the things that bugged me during the winter seemed far less important.
This winter has, quite frankly, been a complete nightmare. Most of my driving recently has been at night, and at night here it gets very dark, being a Dark Skies area. Much of my driving is also on narrow and winding roads. The frustration of having headlights and wipers that simply aren't at all easy to control, in particular the wipers, where having to stop the car to change the setting safely when it's pitch dark and raining heavily, has, for me, outweighed the fun aspects of driving the car.
Everyone will be different, though, and I have no doubt that, if we lived somewhere else, and didn't spend a lot of time driving along narrow lanes, especially at night, then I'd probably keep the car. As it is, I'm selling it, primarily because I can see no sign that Tesla will ever get around to making some of the basics work well under the sort of driving conditions that are commonplace for us.
That's a brilliant summary, well worth a read by anyone contemplating buying a Tesla Model 3.
It is very definitely a question of whether the irritating things outweigh the great things. My first winter with the Model 3 (I bought my car in November 2019) was very disappointing, but the car was new and I had high hopes that the irritating flaws would be sorted out with updates.
Last summer was definitely odd, because of the plague, but the car was generally great fun, and the things that bugged me during the winter seemed far less important.
This winter has, quite frankly, been a complete nightmare. Most of my driving recently has been at night, and at night here it gets very dark, being a Dark Skies area. Much of my driving is also on narrow and winding roads. The frustration of having headlights and wipers that simply aren't at all easy to control, in particular the wipers, where having to stop the car to change the setting safely when it's pitch dark and raining heavily, has, for me, outweighed the fun aspects of driving the car.
Everyone will be different, though, and I have no doubt that, if we lived somewhere else, and didn't spend a lot of time driving along narrow lanes, especially at night, then I'd probably keep the car. As it is, I'm selling it, primarily because I can see no sign that Tesla will ever get around to making some of the basics work well under the sort of driving conditions that are commonplace for us.
Mperkins28
Member
My car is only the basic model not the lr or P so I don’t think it will have the steering wheel anyway.
No steering wheel must be some cost saving by Tesla.
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Just have to remember that an "Elon Year" is a variable, not a constant, and it's value is never declared . . .
According to Google, there are 687 days a year on Mars, so that might go some way to explaining Elon time
- Status
Similar threads
